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The Last Real Season: A Hilarious Look Back at 1975 - When Major Leaguers Made Peanuts, the Umpires Wore Red, and Billy Martin Terrorized Everyone
A rollicking and ribald first-person account of the 1975 Major League Baseball season—the last year before free agency took over and changed the national pastime forever—for better or for worse!There are baseball books and there are baseball books.But for the baseball cognoscenti, there are just a few "must-have" Four by Jim Bouton. The Long Season by Jim Brosnan. Willie's Time by Charles Einstein. And Seasons In Hell by Mike Shropshire, which was a hilarous first-person account of Mike's travails serving as a daily beat writer covering the hapless 1972 Texas Rangers.Now, in The Last Real Season, Shropshire captures the essence of a different time and different place in baseball, when the average salary for major leaguers was only $27,600...when the ballplayers' drug of choice was alcohol, not steroids...when major leaguers sported tight doubleknit uniforms over their long-hair and Afros...and on July 28th, 1975, the day that famed Detroit resident Jimmy Hoffa went missing, the Detroit Tigers started a losing streak of 19 games in a row. On the day that the Tigers blew a 4-run lead in the bottom of the ninth, Shropshire "I drank three bottles of Stroh's beer in less than a minute and wrote that 'Jimmy Hoffa will show up in the left field stands with Amelia Earhart as his date before the Tigers will win another game.'"And so it goes. Filled with just the kind of wonderful baseball stories that real fans crave, this is the funniest baseball book of the year.
261 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
August 3, 2022
Mike Shropshire spent the 1970s covering the Texas Rangers for a Fort Worth newspaper and this is his second book on the subject written decades later. The title refers to the last season before free agency blew the roof off baseball by changing the economics and thus the attitude. Personally I came for the Billy Martin angle, but the overall subject matter needed to grip me early and often and the writer did so. The guy makes funny observations and sees the absurdity in life. The style reminded me of Bill Bryson, but Bryson's jokes rarely land with me. Shropshire's has more wit in my opinion.
Knowing what happened to these people decades later might allow the writer to cheat some foreshadowing into the story. Reggie Jackson, Pete Rose, and Mike Hargrove will figure prominently in later baseball tales. He says Gene Autry is the best owner in the American League because he was the only one that didn't need to buy a team to become famous. This is likely a fog at George Steinbrenner and Brad Corbett, the owner of the Rangers. he tells us how the two planned a coup against commissioner, Bowie Kuhn, but eventually relented which angered Charlie Finley. If there was any big surprise it's that Dallas resident Mickey Mantle is not more prominently featured in the book. I expected that he would be hanging with Billy in the Rangers clubhouse all the time. He is only seen at Old Timers games and such.
This is a fun if light baseball read and worthwhile to anyone interested in baseball in the early 1970s.
Knowing what happened to these people decades later might allow the writer to cheat some foreshadowing into the story. Reggie Jackson, Pete Rose, and Mike Hargrove will figure prominently in later baseball tales. He says Gene Autry is the best owner in the American League because he was the only one that didn't need to buy a team to become famous. This is likely a fog at George Steinbrenner and Brad Corbett, the owner of the Rangers. he tells us how the two planned a coup against commissioner, Bowie Kuhn, but eventually relented which angered Charlie Finley. If there was any big surprise it's that Dallas resident Mickey Mantle is not more prominently featured in the book. I expected that he would be hanging with Billy in the Rangers clubhouse all the time. He is only seen at Old Timers games and such.
This is a fun if light baseball read and worthwhile to anyone interested in baseball in the early 1970s.
December 18, 2020
A wonderful trip down memory lane and one of the funnier baseball books you will read.
January 13, 2009
This is a very funny book about baseball in the year 1975. I found myself laughing out loud many times much to the distress of my husband while he was trying to watch tv/read/sleep. I ended up keeping my mouth closed and instead made choking sounds which probably also bothered him. He will be reading this book next and since he has a habit of telling me everything that is happening in his book, I'll get to hear it all again!
July 20, 2022
Awful. Got it on Amazon for $1.99. I got gypped.
August 7, 2019
"The Last Real Season" lacks the gut-busting laughter and Kafka-esque rigmarole of the 162-game-season featured in Shropshire's "Seasons in Hell." The former pseudo-sequel seems to label itself more as an informative, journalistic narrative of the season (similar to Dan Epstein's "Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of ‘76") than the obvious personal memoir of the latter. But no, "The Last Real Season" is just a day-by-day elaboration of Shropshire's time with the Texas Rangers in 1975, something which he already covered in "Seasons in Hell," although with less detail than 1973 and '74. Dag gummit, "The Last Real Season" does not even mention umpires wearing red in the book! I have a hunch that Shropshire was really jealous of Jim Bouton and tried in vain for his second attempt at a raunchy, self-deprecating look at the innerworkings of being apart of a ball club to match the style and success of "Ball Four."
I am one of the few youngsters in this current era that take a serious interest in 1970s-1980s baseball history. Most of the old-school sports columnists and talking heads thought the golden age of Major League Baseball was before the advent of free-agency, the designated hitter, and inter-league play. Shropshire is one of these figures, even if he rails against them in his book. The reason this text is titled "The Last Real Season" is because it was truly the last season before the normalization of free agency. Shropshire laments, and routinely pokes fun of, the fact that baseball players can afford nice houses and don't, usually, have to play in third-world Latin American ball clubs during the winter. This thinking implicitly supports the monopolistic and tyrannical measures instituted by club owners that treated players not as human beings, but disposable money suckers. Maybe it is not such a dichotomous situation, but Shropshire is not really hounding his own theories of how to avoid either problem (even if free agency is not really a problem at all!).
I am one of the few youngsters in this current era that take a serious interest in 1970s-1980s baseball history. Most of the old-school sports columnists and talking heads thought the golden age of Major League Baseball was before the advent of free-agency, the designated hitter, and inter-league play. Shropshire is one of these figures, even if he rails against them in his book. The reason this text is titled "The Last Real Season" is because it was truly the last season before the normalization of free agency. Shropshire laments, and routinely pokes fun of, the fact that baseball players can afford nice houses and don't, usually, have to play in third-world Latin American ball clubs during the winter. This thinking implicitly supports the monopolistic and tyrannical measures instituted by club owners that treated players not as human beings, but disposable money suckers. Maybe it is not such a dichotomous situation, but Shropshire is not really hounding his own theories of how to avoid either problem (even if free agency is not really a problem at all!).
May 8, 2014
A look back at the 1975 baseball season when players were still, for the most part, not paid very well but seemed to have more fun. I can only remember the historic World Series for that year so reading about Billy Martin's managerial antics with the Rangers was fairly interesting.
January 6, 2013
Hilarious? Well, maybe if you have a fetish for Billy Martin. It is NOT a look back at the 1975 season, but rather a insiders look at the Texas Rangers. To me, a very disappointing way to end 2012's reading.
January 10, 2022
An interesting chronicle of the last season before free agency hit baseball
It's certainly a fast read but clearly the writer is trying to join the "Gonzo journalist" ranks. Funny at times but the similes and metaphors can be a little much.
It's certainly a fast read but clearly the writer is trying to join the "Gonzo journalist" ranks. Funny at times but the similes and metaphors can be a little much.
June 23, 2023
The Last Real Season by Mike Shropshire (2oo8) is a look at the 1975 MLB season from the pov of the author covering the Texas Rangers. The first half of the book, focusing on manager Billy Martin, had already been covered in the second half of Shropshire's book Season's In Hell. In fact, I swear the was actual paragraphs or at least sentences re-used...There are some laughs in the book but certainly not enough to call it "Hilarious". And, there's a fair amount of sexual metaphors & innuendos that fall flat or having nothing to do with story at hand. I also found that the team, the '75 Texas Rangers, are not interesting enough to hold the reader through two books. I do like Shropshire's prose; he's got a kind of hippie approach that really captures the '70's vibe...But, sorry, can't fully recommend The Last Real Season. I suggest you read Shropshire's first book Season's In Hell...2.0 outta 5.0...
March 23, 2018
Was hoping this book was as advertised — a look at Major League Baseball in 1975, one of the years when I was uber passionate about the sport. Unfortunately, it was a former Texas Rangers beat writer's look at the season from his actual paid perspective. So we learn a lot about the Rangers' season, which included another firing of Billy Martin and generally unfulfilled expectations for the team. But there is little about American League teams except when the Rangers are playing them (plus a little more about the defending champion Oakland A's) and precious little about National League teams. The reader also is graced with numerous instances of the writer and various players drinking to excess, taking drugs and bedding available women, plus dispatches of the writer's hyperbolic writing. Yawn.
August 22, 2017
So this is gonzo sports writing? Read his other one about the Rangers but don't remember groaning as much at his attempts at humor as I did while reading this one. For example, dissing my team's ballpark..."White Sox Park, so old that it had ear hair and a nut sack that sagged down to its knes, was mostly packed for the home opener, predominatntly with hoods and goons." page 82 He also called the South Side of Chicago, "South Chicago" in the previous paragraph on the same page. Malcolm Anderson ripped me in front of his College Comp class at Morton West in '86 when I tried to write like that in a paper about going roller skating in Lombard. It took awhile to really get into it, I think it happened once Billy Martin was fired.
May 27, 2018
Baseball in 1975 is very different from today. There was no free agency, players made nothing, and pretty much everyone was a hot headed alcoholic. Mike Shropshire’s book covers all of it. His wit and sense of humor makes the pages fly by. He has lots of good behind the scenes stories of the chaos that was the 1975 season. Mr. Shropshire was a beat writer following the Texas Rangers, so the book is heavily based on the Rangers season. That is ok because one of the biggest scoundrels from the season was their manager, Billy Martin. This is a hilarious book that looks back at a different time in baseball. Anyone who likes baseball especially around that era will enjoy this book, provided you are not easily offended.
July 21, 2023
Eh, a funny book but there are better books about the 1975 season. Basically just another book about the Texas Rangers season, not the overall 1975 baseball season. And another book about what a racist, alcoholic jerk Billy Martin was. What is everyone's infatuation with him? There are a lot of good small personal stories with the author and some Texas Rangers, some with Martin, but I guess I was hoping for a little more on the Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds in this one and they're barely mentioned. A great book if you are a Texas Rangers fan and want to relive that season. If you like Seasons in Hell by the same author you'll like this one, which is basically Part II of that book. I'm not saying this book is bad, it's very entertaining. It's just not what I was hoping for.
September 5, 2022
I love baseball history - particularly of the 60s through 80s when I was growing up. As an adult, I moved to Dallas and adopted the Texas Rangers as my baseball team. So I thought a baseball book about 1975 would be a good read. Boy was I surprised. The author seems to oscillate between being bitter about his job as a sportswriter and bragging about the debauchery he participated in during his travels. I wanted to like this book. I forced myself to finish it because surely I thought there would be a good story or quote along the way. Alas, I was disappointed. I hope the author found some peace after writing this book, because he sounds grumpy and bitter.
December 4, 2022
Very misleading. Not so much an overview of the ‘75 season, but random notes regarding the Texas Rangers (of all teams). Worse yet, it was more of a personal diary from an unlikable sportswriter’s often disturbing on-the-road tales and his “wild and crazy” lifestyle he seems to think is impressing someone. Humor is very subjective, but I found his equivalent to a guy looking for big laughs by pulling a chair out from someone just before they sit. Far from funny, I found it sad and difficult to finish.
September 24, 2021
A fun, interesting book
This was awesome. I loved reading the behind the scenes journey the author had covering the Rangers. As a former longtime newspaperman, I can relate to the deadlines and the drinking!
This was awesome. I loved reading the behind the scenes journey the author had covering the Rangers. As a former longtime newspaperman, I can relate to the deadlines and the drinking!
November 21, 2022
A great story & true also if you're a beanball fa you will love this book.Shropshire mixes ruth and funny into it.1975 wa the last real season because in 1976 free agents were free to go where they wanted after there contract was over.
May 2, 2021
Great Book
Fantastic book one of the best sports books I have ever read. It had me laughing out loud at times
Fantastic book one of the best sports books I have ever read. It had me laughing out loud at times
November 29, 2021
A very entertaining book about the 1975 Rangers season.
September 9, 2022
Entertaining if anything
Pretty good read although not much of a story, just a bunch of random incidents throughout the 1975 baseball season. Many funny LOL incidents!
Pretty good read although not much of a story, just a bunch of random incidents throughout the 1975 baseball season. Many funny LOL incidents!
February 15, 2025
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. The stories are funny though.
March 16, 2009
Something of an eulogy for the lost, pre-multi-millionaire game of professional baseball, Shropshire documents the trials, tribulations, and anecdotes of the zany, and somewhat disturbing, 1975 season of the Texas Rangers. This is highly recommended for those still interested in our “National Pastime.” I might also offer this to those who attempt to chew tobacco, chain-smoke, consume massive quantities of booze, skirt-chase, bar-brawl, and speak without filter in the early Twenty-First Century. For those unfortunate souls, this might not prove fascinating but certainly other-worldly. Imagine, if you will, a time when you could go to an airport, get trashed, get paranoid, and boisterously accuse some random businessman of sneaking a bomb into his briefcase, thus eliciting mere giggles from the other passengers and gate attendants. The Golden Age indeed.
In addition to paltry salaries (though I could get some architects of the era – if not our own era – to disagree), the author belabors the point that steroids weren’t an issue during the heady 70s. As I’m certain Lyle Alzado had been abusing the stuff for years (as were, according to his estimate, 90% of other football pros) I can’t help but speculate that perhaps it’s less a question about some purported purity of the game that rapidly dissipated with free-agency and gargantuan salaries, than one about how serious players and managers might have been then versus now. Or, to put it another way, was the game more exciting when there was more variability? Referring to a point once expressed by the late Steven Jay Gould, currently the margin between the top players and the others is – with occasional exceptions – very slim. This begins to explain why there will likely never be another .400 season batting average in the MLB. It also, perhaps, makes the game less engaging to the potential fan. But doesn’t it also make the game more “professional”? In addition to a wider variation in skill levels during earlier eras, I would also imagine that, assuming I follow Shropshire’s narrative correctly, if every player shows up to every game with a massive hangover, and pops out for smoke breaks between innings, that might have to add to a certain irregularity of performance. I’m not saying current players don’t booze it up – or worse – but something about $12,000 per pitch payoffs or having a limb insured by Lloyds of London has to add a certain level of seriousness that, if less colorful, is at least more “professional” in many ways. Perhaps the game is more sterile these days, but I do know that Fenway Park no longer suffers from meager attendance and I haven’t noticed too many fans tossing Frisbees – or firecrackers – around in the bleacher seats of contemporary baseball.
In addition to paltry salaries (though I could get some architects of the era – if not our own era – to disagree), the author belabors the point that steroids weren’t an issue during the heady 70s. As I’m certain Lyle Alzado had been abusing the stuff for years (as were, according to his estimate, 90% of other football pros) I can’t help but speculate that perhaps it’s less a question about some purported purity of the game that rapidly dissipated with free-agency and gargantuan salaries, than one about how serious players and managers might have been then versus now. Or, to put it another way, was the game more exciting when there was more variability? Referring to a point once expressed by the late Steven Jay Gould, currently the margin between the top players and the others is – with occasional exceptions – very slim. This begins to explain why there will likely never be another .400 season batting average in the MLB. It also, perhaps, makes the game less engaging to the potential fan. But doesn’t it also make the game more “professional”? In addition to a wider variation in skill levels during earlier eras, I would also imagine that, assuming I follow Shropshire’s narrative correctly, if every player shows up to every game with a massive hangover, and pops out for smoke breaks between innings, that might have to add to a certain irregularity of performance. I’m not saying current players don’t booze it up – or worse – but something about $12,000 per pitch payoffs or having a limb insured by Lloyds of London has to add a certain level of seriousness that, if less colorful, is at least more “professional” in many ways. Perhaps the game is more sterile these days, but I do know that Fenway Park no longer suffers from meager attendance and I haven’t noticed too many fans tossing Frisbees – or firecrackers – around in the bleacher seats of contemporary baseball.
March 18, 2019
Years ago, in a dusty bookstore in Memphis, I found Mike Shropshire's "Seasons in Hell," his coverage of the Texas Rangers in the mid 1970s. It was one of the best baseball books I've ever read. So, when I saw his "The Last Real Season," I had to dive in.
Shropshire basically retools his 1975 season with the Rangers, but offers it in a diary form. There are some irreverent things: He brags about drinking and smoking weed a lot, and he recalls some of the players' jaunts and mayhems while on the road. Think a tamed Hunter Thompson covers the season and then writes about it. (Shropshire also refers to sending stories on the "mojo wire," just as Thompson referred to a basic fax machine when he was doing daily stories in days of yore.) But he also provides insight into players just before the free agency market exploded, hence his feelings of the "last real" season when players were still, basically, indentured to teams.
There are a lot of fun memories here for olde time baseball fans. Billy Martin's bipolar personality, White Herzog with the Royals, old Texas Ranger players- Toby Harrah, Jeff Burroughs, Fergie Jenkins, et al., ballparks, etc., are all highlighted.
After reading this, it's made me want to hunt down "Seasons in Hell" and read that as the 2019 baseball season is about to open.
Shropshire basically retools his 1975 season with the Rangers, but offers it in a diary form. There are some irreverent things: He brags about drinking and smoking weed a lot, and he recalls some of the players' jaunts and mayhems while on the road. Think a tamed Hunter Thompson covers the season and then writes about it. (Shropshire also refers to sending stories on the "mojo wire," just as Thompson referred to a basic fax machine when he was doing daily stories in days of yore.) But he also provides insight into players just before the free agency market exploded, hence his feelings of the "last real" season when players were still, basically, indentured to teams.
There are a lot of fun memories here for olde time baseball fans. Billy Martin's bipolar personality, White Herzog with the Royals, old Texas Ranger players- Toby Harrah, Jeff Burroughs, Fergie Jenkins, et al., ballparks, etc., are all highlighted.
After reading this, it's made me want to hunt down "Seasons in Hell" and read that as the 2019 baseball season is about to open.
February 25, 2010
Author Mike Shropshire pens a very funny look at the 1975 baseball season, in which his gonzo-inspired style of writing and story immersion lend lots of laughs and improbably moments. However, I felt sold short of a book that delved into why this was the "real last season". Shropshire certainly alludes to the rationale during the introduction, but fails to back it up by his blog-like account of the season. I much preferred his "Seasons in Hell" and his most recent effort played like an ill-conceived sequel.
June 21, 2015
I agree with the assessment that this book is a sequel to "Seasons in Hell." I also agree that the author at times spends too much time with his excesses and conquests. However, what this book left me with was the impression that often times, ball players and the writers that cover them sometimes just don't like their job. That to me made them more than human and underscores the point of the whole book in my perception. Before everything changed indeed.
March 9, 2008
A sequel to SEASONS IN HELL, written about ten years after, THE LAST REAL SEASON suffers, as did that book, from Shropshire's smart-alecky tone, as well as Shropshire's belaboring of the point that these players weren't on steroids and didn't make exorbitant sums of money. Still, there is much to relish in this account of the Texas Rangers' Road to Perdition
December 29, 2015
Excellent book ! A really funny look back at baseball (and life) during the 1975 baseball season. Shropshire really brings the reader into the press box and on the long road trips, and helps the common fan realize what it was like for the sportswriter covering a team all season long. The content with the legendary Billy Martin were pure gold. Big recommend !
October 7, 2013
I enjoyed this book. I usually do enjoy most sports books that tell tales of players ingredient up watching. I was 8 years old during this season, but still remember the players and world series like it was yesterday.
October 11, 2010
Good analysis of baseball as it begins to enter the free agent era. Also, as a Reds fan, some good Big Red Machine history here.
August 25, 2015
Shropshire provides a funny month-by-month deconstruction of the 1975 Texas Rangers season. It's crisply written and a fun read about baseball, booze, and the seventies.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews